After 5 1/2 Years, a Labor War Ends at 2 Detroit Papers

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: December 19, 2000

The ratification of new contracts by two Teamsters' locals has not only ended an exceptionally bitter labor dispute of five and a half years at The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, but it has also set the stage for a period of reconciliation.

Labor leaders and newspaper officials said the agreements approved on Sunday by the union locals, the deliverers and the mailers, will seek to foster cooperation among the warring sides and lift the two newspapers' circulation, which dropped 30 percent during the dispute, partly because of a union-backed boycott.

Both sides said yesterday that they were pleased that the labor dispute had ended, but neither side was declaring victory. Hundreds of workers went without pay for several years, while the walkout cost the two newspapers at least $200 million, managers acknowledged.

''When a labor dispute goes on five and a half years, there are only losers and lessons,'' said Mark Silverman, publisher and editor of The Detroit News. ''I don't think anybody won. The reaction that's most prevalent here -- it's the same as the reaction after Bush became president-elect -- regardless of which side you're on, you just exhaled deeply and were happy that it was over.''

In Seattle, many of the nearly 1,000 Newspaper Guild members on strike for 28 days against The Seattle Times and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said they hoped their strike did not turn into a similar marathon.

The dispute in Detroit, one of the most rancorous in the newspaper industry in years, began on July 13, 1995, when nearly 2,500 workers from six unions walked out. After the newspapers kept operating, largely through the use of replacement workers, the six unions decided 19 months later to return to work without a contract.

Two unions, the typographers and the photoengravers, approved a new contract in 1999, while two others, the press workers and the Newspaper Guild, reached a settlement last month. That left the two Teamsters locals, which have 1,400 members, as the only unions without a contract, until Sunday.

''The reason these contracts were ratified is the workers understood that having a contract with these newspapers is probably something the newspapers really didn't want,'' said Shawn Ellis, spokesman for the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions. ''The ratifications make sure there is still a union at the paper. Are these contracts as good as they were prior to 1995? No. But it's better to have a contract, than no contract at all.''

Tim Kelleher, senior vice president for labor relations at the Detroit Newspapers, the joint operating company that helps put out the two dailies, said management wanted contracts to help circulation. The papers' circulation fell, at eight times the rate at which newspaper circulation declined nationwide, because many readers in Detroit, a heavily unionized city, shunned the papers.

One Teamsters' official said his union would announce an end to the boycott on Wednesday.

With the combined daily circulation of the Detroit newpapers falling to 603,000 in September from 903,000 before the walkout, the agreements seek to create a sense of shared responsibility to improve the newspapers and their circulation.

Under the four contracts ratified this year, most workers will receive a $1,000 bonus if the papers' combined circulation rises 100,000 by next September and a $3,000 bonus if circulation climbs 200,000.

Mr. Kelleher said most workers would receive raises of 2 percent a year under the three-year contracts signed by the Teamsters locals, the Newspaper Guild and the press workers. The contracts contain ''open shop'' clauses that do not require new employees to join unions or pay the equivalent of dues, provisions that the union bitterly opposed.

The new agreements contain significant losses for some workers. Union officials said members of the Teamsters' mailers union, who put inserts into the newspaper, earned $16 an hour in 1995 but now earn about $11 an hour.

Under the contract, the newspapers are to rehire 185 strikers, but are waiting for slots to open. The newspapers filled many positions with permanent replacement workers. About 200 other strikers are hoping to get their jobs back, but the company says it will not rehire them, insisting they were fired for wrongdoing. Most say they have done nothing wrong and are suing to get their jobs back.

Both sides acknowledge there is still bitterness between workers who crossed the picket line and those who did not and between union leaders and management.

''When you go through a strike of five and a half years, there are some hard feelings and these hard feelings are not going to disappear overnight,'' said Heath Meriwether, publisher of the Free Press. ''This is such an important first step, and I do think it is the start of what I think will be a healing process, not just within the newspaper companies but within our whole community.''

Steve Babson, a labor expert at Wayne State University in Detroit, said the dispute did not have good results for the union.

''In terms of who won, the employer won,'' Mr. Babson said. ''Management basically implemented unilaterally what they had been trying to force the unions to accept in 1995.''

But he said management also suffered.

''Did the companies come out better than they were before, which is what winning usually means?'' Mr. Babson said. ''I'd say they lost a lot of money and pretty much trashed these papers.''

Photo: A confrontation in July 1995 outside a printing plant for The Detroit News and The Free Press. (Associated Press)